The Campfire’s Yarn

Ben plunged into slumber. He didn’t want rest, but it came for him anyway. Sleep contained dreams he had not had for years. His mother’s art room was a place he had visited often. Familiar pictures lined the walls, but only one caught his eye. In the center of the room was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. A painting of a single white lily, in a transparent glass vase. It had a long thirteen-inch stem and a dark green hue. Perched atop the stem were six ivory petals peeled so far back they made a circle, revealing a treasure. Six golden bulbs stretched out, all with their own pale green stems, luring him in with the sweetest aroma. To take the aromatic painting with him was what he wanted, but the bulbs immediately turned a sickly brown when he grabbed it. Betraying him, the sweet smell was now so noisome that it sent him reeling back so fast he lost his footing. Colliding with the ground, a stab of pain flashed through his back. Spreading outward radially, the hungry circle consumed the bulbs then the stems and soon the entirety of the flower, but it didn’t stop there. Blackening, the easel was next crumbling to the ground, a heap of ash. Creeping along the floor, the wave of decay devoured all that would fit in its gaping maw. Dust and the stench of death filled the air. Would it consume the entire world? The mouth was upon him and in fear, he closed his eyes, his thoughts on his mother. When Ben opened his eyes he was no longer in the art room. Instead, he was in his foyer lounging in a chair next to a lit fireplace. Sitting on the sofa were his parents with a small, wooden table that had a glass top separating them from the fireplace. On the tabletop was a glass of amber liquid, his father’s favorite drink. Softly sobbing, his mother buried her face into his fathers’ chest. Another episode he had triggered. Looking at Ben she began to wail, and flail, lashing out at everything in her reach. Her screams were delirious, punctuated by the repeated blows she delivered to his father. A single word was distinct from the sharp shrieking, Liam. In her frenzy, she spilled the glass on the table. Growing angry, his father stuck her to the ground and pulled a needle out of his pocket. Mounting on top of her, his knees pinned her arms to the ground, he stitched her mouth shut. Pulling on her bottom lip, he pierced all the way through the tissues, blood and screams spurting on his face. She bit at his fingers so he bashed her head into the floor, before continuing his perverted tailoring. Ben froze despite the raging fire next to him, fear had stolen all the heat and passion out of his body, leaving nothing behind but a cold sweat and terror. His father had finished mutilating his mother and dragged her out the front door, into a room that had pillows for walls. He forced her into a suit made of leather straps while the stitches muffled her unbroken screams. Ben reached out, calling “Mother!” but this drew the ire of his father. Whipping around, he stared Ben down, blood covering his face like a lion after a fresh kill. Looming over him, his father grew fifty feet tall, howling while fire spewed from his mouth, scorching the house as he transformed. His face grew into a long muzzle, eyes turning red with black slits for pupils. Teeth elongating until they were bigger than daggers. Black scales shredded his skin from beneath, tearing it to pieces. Gusts of wind so powerful, that Ben could not stand in their wake, emanated from his arms that stretched into large velvety wings. Fallen and unable to stand, he desperately wanted to crawl away and hide, but cowardice had pinned his legs in place. The beast that was once his father opened its jaws and lunged.